The Job of a Summoner
by Ikaru Kakou
Summary: Ever wondered exactly HOW summoners can do all that they do? Well, this explains it. Oneshot, please R&R. Rated T for safety and to keep the idiots who only read K and K out.


**A/N:** I honestly have no idea why this popped into my head, but it did. So I'm writing it up. It's most likely going to end up being a oneshot, but if I get enough reviews I may change the title and go into some other concepts from FFX and FFX2, or maybe even do some 'What if's'. But basically, it explains how certain parts of a summoner's job work, and what it's like to do them.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything related to Final Fantasy except some copies of some games. Ergo, anything stated here not mentioned in the games is _not_ necessarily true.

The Job of a Summoner 

The job of a summoner seems like a fairly simple thing when you first explain it, doesn't it? The summoner's job is to go on a pilgrimage collecting aeons at temples and sending the dead to the Farplane before sacrificing themselves to summon the Final Aeon and defeat Sin. Then again, the question remains: How exactly do they do these things? The answers are of course unknown to anyone not high ranking enough in the temples or who isn't a summoner. But here, we can speculate about these things using information that we do know. I intend to explore this topic, and provide answers to how exactly one can perform a sending, gain an aeon, summon an aeon, or even become a fayth.

We begin, with the sending.

_Sendings:_

A sending is when a summoner directs the spirits of the dead, in the form of pyreflies, to the Farplane so they can rest in peace and not become a fiend that will terrorize the living. This is done using a form of magic not taught to anyone other than summoners, which means of course that, if they were taught how, virtually anyone with enough magic power could perform a sending.

This magic relies on one's ability to extend your mind from your body, as you would do in directing any spell, and sense out things. A summoner will use this to find the pyreflies in a dead person and then, using magic that moves such things, send them to the Farplane.

This seems easy when seen by someone else, but it is in fact very difficult. Any summoner who has performed a sending will at all times be able to point in the exact direction of the Farplane. The reason for this is that summoners are trained in extending their mind quite far and finding specific things (notably, Seymour Guado was told to locate Maester Mika's hat while Seymour himself sat alone in the Temple of Bajj.) After they are deemed capable of this, summoners-in-training are randomly told to locate the Farplane and point in the exact direction of it to the point where it has been heard of summoners being awakened in the middle of the night and told to do so in less than a minute. Many summoners-in-training are mentally broken from this extreme training and are left as empty shells, which die within days. Those who survive tend to have their mind drawn towards the Farplane whenever it is extended from their body, making the casting of any spell somewhat more difficult, as they must refrain from, were they casting a fire spell, setting the Farplane on fire instead of the White Flan they meant to hit.

_Receiving Aeons:_

The gift of an aeon is attained through much time spent praying at the statue of a fayth and causing the fayth itself to appear before oneself and let you persuade it to give you its aeon. Strangely enough, the drawing of a fayth from its statue is done in a way similar to that of sending someone, in that it uses the same magic, yet different in that fayth tend to be elusive even within their statues. Once a fayth has been drawn from its statue, one must persuade the fayth to let you have its aeon, which requires different methods depending on the fayth, and even what kind of mood the fayth is in. This is usually done with simple conversation, although on occasion fayth have been known to challenge a summoner to a battle to earn their aeon, most notably with Yojimbo when he is in a bad mood summoning his aeon (another reason why so few summoners gain his aeon, as when summoned by Yojimbo himself Zanmato comes out first every time). Once you have persuaded a fayth to let you have their aeon, the fayth, using magic accessible only to fayth, will merge a part of their very soul with yours, which will only separate upon your death.

_Summoning Aeons:_

To summon an aeon, it is only necessary to find the bit of a fayth's soul that has been locked away within yourself and to, using the same magic as one would use on a pyrefly or an actual fayth, bring this out into the world. Any effects seen when an aeon is summoned are actually caused by the fayth itself, and will not effect the summoner in any way. However, because the part of a fayth's soul that is merged with your own _is_ merged with your soul, this makes an aeon's strength dependant upon the summoner's own strength, which can usually be figured using various equations. This is why a Valefor summoned by Lord Gandolf would be different than a Valefor summoned by Lord Braska.

_Becoming a Fayth:_

The Final Aeon, while it is the ultimate weapon with which to fight Sin, is still an aeon. As such, it requires a fayth. Since the Final Aeon is to be extremely powerful, the bond between the fayth and the summoner needs to be equally strong, as the kind of bond a fayth has with a summoner will also determine the aeon's strength. In order for someone to become a fayth though, the process is not so simple as you may have been told. The rumor that a fayth is always someone who died so that Yevon may use them to destroy Sin, is in fact false. A fayth is the guardian of a summoner who had a deep bond with the summoner. This guardian undergoes a long process which begins with their death. After dying, the guardian is in fact left for a while to start the process of becoming a fiend. However, before the guardian can become a fiend (usually after a few hours), something similar to a sending takes place. Instead of being sent to the farplane however, the spirit of the dead guardian is instead directed into the summoner, where it will merge itself to the summoner's soul. The distress placed upon someone by having the entire soul of another person merged to their own is profound. This point is crucial. It is at this point that it is determined whether the fayth will become the fayth of a Final Summoning, or merely a fayth which may be used in the future by other summoners. This is determined by whether the summoner is able to contain their fayth's soul within them. If they are not, they are left with merely another aeon to summon while the rest of the fayth's soul will be left to wander the world aimlessly, unable to appear as anything until it settles upon a place and eventually forms the statue around itself which alerts people that the fayth is in fact there. (Fayth were once prayed to as actual gods because the appearance of a fayth statue seemed like a godsend. This is why most fayth have temples built around them.) The aeon received by the summoner if they cannot keep the fayth's soul within them is much weaker than a Final Aeon. Should the summoner be able to keep the fayth's entire soul within them however, they will be able to summon the Final Aeon once and only once. Once summoned, a Final Aeon cannot be dismissed as it is literally a fiend under the control of a summoner that maintains all memories it had at the time of its death. After destroying Sin, a Final Aeon is then possessed by Yu Yevon and made to kill the summoner and any remaining guardians (yet another reason why Sir Auron was so legendary. He was assumed alive because his body was not found with Braska's, whereas normally the body of a summoner is seen surrounded by the bodies of any guardians that remained alive through the battle with Sin. People were in awe of the fact that he had survived, and were also in awe of the fact that he was in possession of knowledge none of them were likely to ever come across.)

And that, my friends, is the job of summoner.

**Ending A/N:** Well, that was fun to write. –glances at the page and sees that Microsoft Word has flipped out over all the words that aren't real words– Espescially since I can kill Spell Check. –checks that he didn't misspell any actual words– Goodie. Please excuse me if I did misspell anything, but I've been going off of memory to spell many of the non-word words here, and playing through the game to find the correct spellings would take FAR too long. Also, R&R and I might just continue it later if I get motivated enough. Hope you liked it!


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